No takers for prison audit

POINT MACKENZIE — What if the state threw a party and no one came? It happened.

That is, if you consider a request for proposals to perform an audit a “party.”

In February, the state Senate wrangled over what to do about the ongoing project to build the Goose Creek Correctional Center in Point MacKenzie.

The prison is all but done. The Department of Corrections was to the point of asking for money to move a test group of prisoners in to move through the facility gradually and make sure everything worked. But senators looking at the costs had a lot of tough questions for the corrections department.

Most notably, senators said that even paying back the debt incurred to build the prison while still housing prisoners out of state would cost the state less than running Goose Creek.

The result of all this was an audit of the project, for which the state issued a request for proposals with bids due by July 29. A final audit would have been due Dec. 15.

Auditors were asked to look into the selection of the site for the prison and whether it was a “cost-effective location,” and questions about the process to bring water and sewer service to the prison.

That question in particular has been a sticking point in the process. The borough has contracted with a private firm to provide those services. The cost to do so is many times that of providing the same services to prisons in more populated areas such as Eagle River, where Hiland Mountain Correctional Facility stands.

Anyway, that July 29 deadline passed and there were no takers.

Darwin Peterson, a Senate Finance Committee staffer, had a few short sentences to offer when reached via email Friday.

“Since the recent RFP issued by the committee was unresponsive, we don’t have any additional information at this point,” Peterson wrote.

Peterson told the Associated Press last week that perhaps the timeline was too ambitious and auditing firms didn’t feel they could complete the work by the deadline.

In his email, he referred inquiries to audio recordings of February committee hearings and a presentation correction department staff made then.

“Our questions and concerns regarding this project are still the same,” Peterson wrote.

In response to a follow-up email asking what the state will do now — whether it will try for another audit or do something else — Peterson said that’s unclear.

“We’re discussing all our options with the divisions of Legislative Legal and Legislative Audit before making a decision about what to do next,” he wrote.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.